Emerging China and India on its Tail
In a monumental work on world history, Arnold J Toynbee, in his final volume had predicted the rise of India and China as major world powers. Even earlier, nearly 200 years ago, Napoleon had prophesized that China was a ‘sleeping giant’ and once it awakens, the world will shake. There is absolutely no need to dwell on Chinese economic prowess as that is self-evident. There is some scepticism about it in India though. In the 1950s and 1960s, in Mumbai, plenty of Japanese goods were available through door-to-door salesmen. The most often heard comment used to be that the Japanese goods are shoddy and ‘cheap’. The preference was for English or German products, due to their perceived durability and superior quality. Before the dawn of 1970s, Japan had excelled in both quality and price. China today is in similar position and could well be like Japan raised to the power of 10. China is already the ‘Mecca’ of manufacture.
Currently, the US is the biggest debtor nation in the world…
Yet more like the US, China faces daunting internal challenges, possibly more severe and also more plausible. Under the one-party iron rule of the Communist party, there is no individual freedom in China. Even the judiciary is under party control and an individual with personal grievance has no recourse to redress. The news that filters through the ‘Bamboo Curtain’ often gives glimpses of violent reactions to injustice. But the vice-like grip on power of the Communist Party and the People’s Liberation Army is such that any organised resistance to the regime is unlikely.
The Chinese have been careful to squash any organisation other than the Communist Party. The severe crackdown on the ‘Guang Falong’ is an example. But individual frustration could lead to acts of terrorism and industrial sabotage. There have already been several such incidents. If these individual revolts against the system take the form of an epidemic, then the effect could indeed derail the Chinese economy. Internet and spread of communications as well as ‘external’ encouragement could well make it more than a mere pin-prick.
China, in its drive for industrialisation, has completely ignored safety and environment. It is indeed strange that a would-be Super Power suffers from mine accidents on a regular basis. In the ‘Workers Paradise’ the mine workers have no godfather. Would the Indian Communists leave aside their Pavlovian instincts and look at this objectively? The frequent explosions in coal mines raise serious questions about the efficiency of the management and state oversight.
China faces daunting internal challenges, possibly more severe and also more plausible…
But the even greater disaster in waiting to happen in China is the utter disregard for the environmental impact of economic development. The recent incident where hazardous chemicals have flowed into a major international river like the Amur is a cause for concern not just for China but even for Russia. The situation has arisen due to the fact that in the Chinese system, there is no room for checks and balances or rival power centres. This may well give an appearance of efficiency and decisiveness, but in reality, results in poor decisions. How can China overcome this, is a question mark. Does it democratise? Can it control the process? There are no easy answers.
China has, over last two decades, succeeded in controlling its population. Its rising living standards are to some extent due to this. To achieve this, China enforced the ‘One Child’ norm. It is well known that in China in general (and India) in rural area in particular, there is a marked preference for a male child. In China’s opaque system with the widespread abortions, it is indeed certain that the male-female ratio is badly skewed in favour of males. What impact this would have on crime and the law and order situation in future, is unknown to even the best of social scientists since this is a indeed a unique case.
With the enforcement of the ‘One Child’ norm, already a large part of the Chinese population would be the ‘only’ child of its parents. From universal experience of families, it is seen than a single child is often obstinate, demanding and selfish. Imagine a country where 500 million citizens have this psychological disposition. A nation is, after all, a collection of individuals. What will China look like in the future? Will such a nation be able to live in peace with the rest of the world or would it be aggressive and domineering?
The Chinese have been careful to squash any organisation other than the Communist Party…
The Chinese Communist Party seems aware of the fragility of its ideology and is, therefore, seeking the rehabilitation of Confucius and Buddha. The internal dynamics of China are uncertain and may swing wildly taking along it the fate of the world.
Elephantine India
It is noticeable that the most common animal motif in India is that of the elephant so also its favourite God. Subconsciously, Indians possibly identify their nation with the elephant. India, like the elephant, is slow to move but sure footed, non aggressive, vegetarian and if it makes up its mind, can make the King of Jungle (Super Powers like the Lion or Tiger) run for his life. Vegetarianism and taboo on eating beef has given us food self sufficiency and made us the biggest milk producer in the world and the best is yet to come.
India’s democracy and pluralism are NOT the result of its constitution or the British influence but inherent to India’s civilisational ethos; these are pluralistic at roots. Tolerances of dissent, the linguistic, racial and religious variety, are all a product of this so also the Indian talent in software! An Indian is born in an environment that is free from a single dogma.
With its powerful military and nuclear weapons, India is reasonably safe from external threats. The biggest issue in India is internal and that of empowerment of the downtrodden. The Indian constitution gave the affirmative action a pride of place when the so-called advanced democracies were still restrictive. The US gave equal political rights to the Blacks in 1964 and the British granted them to the Irish Catholics in 1968! It is ingenious on the part of these countries to point fingers at us. Yet since the affirmative action came without struggle, there is no appreciation of it.
With its powerful military and nuclear weapons, India is reasonably safe from external threats…
The Dalit movement instead of going in the direction of constructive work has found agitation. This is posing a big challenge to law and order as seen often when mobs ostensibly coming to pay homage to Dr. Ambedkar, indulge in rapes and rioting in Maharashtra. It is indeed a bad omen for the Dalits as their progress would be the first casualty of this approach. Much of the violence in India today is out of growing aspirations and not oppression, though the language used is that of ‘revolution’.
Another issue that dominates the media is the problems faced by the ‘religious minorities’. This is indeed a historical legacy that led to secession of some provinces from India in 1947. The religious minorities, having memories of their rule, subconsciously wish for return of status quo ante and want not just equal but special rights. The vote-bank politics of the last 68 years, instead of striving for social unity (not religious uniformity) has encouraged divisiveness. The elections of 2014 were a watershed in that sense, as minorities for the first time, have become conscious of becoming irrelevant if they continue to follow social, political and economic separatism. The flipside of this ‘vote bank’ politics has been that the minorities suffer discrimination in all fields. This is neither mandated by law or government but has been a result of constant emphasis on ‘separatism’. It seems that a thoughtful section of religious minorities have seen through this charade of their so called well-wishers. Even in conflict prone areas like the Kashmir Valley, the new stirrings are discernable.
The biggest issue in India is internal and that of empowerment of the downtrodden…
Some Indians may be dismayed by the scams involving politicians yet the free media has ensured that the process of accountability has begun. Just as we solved the vexed language issue through the ‘three language’ formula, there is no issue that cannot be resolved peacefully in India’s democratic context. Indians have always thought globally. ‘Vasudhev Kutumbakkam’ or ‘the whole world is one family’, was propagated by our ancestors much before anyone else thought of it. Our cultural vibrancy and confidence makes us ready to take on the world, peacefully. Today, the issue is no longer whether India would be a global power but when!
Conclusion
Indians indeed have never been more confident of their future in history and that is reflected in every field. The elephant is more sure-footed than the Chinese Dragon or the British Lion. This is of course, an analysis, confined to geo-political issues. While all of this may come to naught if say, a San Andreas fault were to open up and swallow the state of California or we continue to rape the environment and ensure that the polar caps melt leading to the ‘Great Flood’. Is it any surprise that all ancient civilisations have their end due to a great flood or ‘pralay’. But short of these events taking place, one is certain that the world would move in the direction of making the 21st century India’s century, if not by design, then by default.
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Sir, I got so much from reading this post. You have changed my mind with the help of this post. Thank you so much for such a great post
While EAGLE, BEAR, LION, ELEPHANT, etc. are real creatures living on earth. Dragon is not real. Dragon is just a costume with a lot of monkey butts hiding inside and blowing smoke
A few points have to be made.
First is that the Founding Fathers were not exactly typical of the “average American”. The American population itself is probably not best thought of as one monolithic population. Probably something that seems natural considering the British werent the sole colonizers of North America, only the ones who eventually conquered most of it. Much of the American coast was colonized by the French, Dutch, Swedish, Portuguese, and Scottish. Keep in mind that there were quite a few loyalist refugees from the American cities who fled to Canada and Britain after the end of the war. Regardless, the Founding Fathers were more or less liberal, often wealthy, coastal, urban intellectuals, wholly constrasting with the more fundamentalist, anti-intellectual, religious rural farmers and craftsman. Some of the letters written by John Adams, the 2nd president, under the satire pseudonym of Humphry Ploughjogger, perfectly illustrate this difference. Furthermore important to understand is the early historical clash over politics in the early years of the American Republic, with John Adams and the Federalists on one side, and Thomas Jefferson and the Democrats on the other side. One of the biggest causes of this political war were the Alien and Sedition Acts, which were some pretty vile legislation, some of which are still law in America. There was much legitimacy and reason for the politics of Thomas Jefferson, but the Democrat party was based off the mass populace of America, mostly rural farmers and craftsmen, and eventually a man by the name of Andrew Jackson was able to hijack the Democrat party and lead it into a racist, xenophobic, populist mob. Andrew Jackson was the early 19th century equivalent of Donald Trump.
“To the Publishers of the Boston Evening-Post.
Plese to put this following, in your next Print.
I Arnt book larnt enuff, to rite so polytly, as the great gentlefolks, that rite in the News-Papers, about Pollyticks. I think it is pitty, they should know how to rite so well, saving they made a better use ont. And that they might do, if they would rite about something else. They do say we are a matter a million of muney in det. If so be the matter be so, I dont see but the Cunstibles must dragg two thirds on us to goal, for our land and housen and creeturs wont pay tacksis, without ther is muney to sell them for. And I am shure ther arnt haff a million of muney amongst us. And now the war is done, we cant bring in any more amungst us. – Humphrey Ploughjogger”
http://www.masshist.org/publications/apde2/view?&id=PJA01dg1
Also, the what you see in America right now isnt exactly something that just happened in the 20th and 21st centuries, it happened far earlier than that, starting at least as early as the late 19th century, but much of the character of America was noted as early as the 1840s by a man known as Alexis de Tocqueville in his Democracy in America.
“Democracy in America was published in two volumes, the first in 1835 and the other in 1840. It was immediately popular in both Europe and the United States, while also having a profound impact on the French population. By the twentieth century, it had become a classic work of political science, social science, and history. It is a commonly assigned reading for undergraduates of American universities majoring in the political or social sciences, and part of the introductory political theory syllabus at Cambridge, Oxford, Princeton and other institutions. In the introduction to his translation of the book, Harvard Professor Harvey C. Mansfield calls it “at once the best book ever written on democracy and the best book ever written on America.”[15]
Tocqueville’s work is often acclaimed for making a number of astute predictions. He anticipates the potential acrimony over the abolition of slavery that would tear apart the United States and lead to the American Civil War as well as the eventual superpower rivalry between the United States and Russia, which exploded after World War II and spawned the Cold War.
Noting the rise of the industrial sector in the American economy, Tocqueville, some scholars have argued, also correctly predicted that an industrial aristocracy would rise from the ownership of labor. He warned that ‘…friends of democracy must keep an anxious eye peeled in this direction at all times’, observing that the route of industry was the gate by which a newfound wealthy class might potentially dominate, although he himself believed that an industrial aristocracy would differ from the formal aristocracy of the past. Furthermore, he foresaw the alienation and isolation that many have come to experience in modern life.
On the other hand, Tocqueville proved shortsighted in noting that a democracy’s equality of conditions stifles literary development. In spending several chapters lamenting the state of the arts in America, he fails to envision the literary Renaissance that would shortly arrive in the form of such major writers as Edgar Allan Poe, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Walt Whitman. Equally, in dismissing the country’s interest in science as limited to pedestrian applications for streamlining the production of material goods, he failed to imagine America’s burgeoning appetite for pure scientific research and discovery.
According to Tocqueville, democracy had some unfavorable consequences: the tyranny of the majority over thought, a preoccupation with material goods, and isolated individuals. Democracy in America predicted the violence of party spirit and the judgment of the wise subordinated to the prejudices of the ignorant.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_in_America
I didn’t get few lines but “rise of the Japanese economy began in the US. Today, the target is China in manufacturing and India in software!” is sounds understand.
This to 1980s that America’s ‘beloved’ Cold War Mujahideen warriors would some day destroy a New York landmark and kill 5,000 Americans!
Thanks for sharing
It is good an article. But some important points are missing. How is The elephant is more sure-footed than the Chinese Dragon or the British Lion? What are the ways ? Western style of Industrialization is not suitable for a country like India. To some extent it is good. But it cannot sustain growth. What is Western culture ? Going on producing new equipment using natural resources and selling that product to other countries . For that, they create war all over the world so that they can sell their war equipment. We have no such plan. Particularly India cannot become a developed nation so long we spend a large amount money for our defense. A small country like Japan,South Koria, and Taiwan become the developed nations within a short time because they spent very less money for their defense and used the USA help. Unnecessary Billions of dollars were spent on defense for the past 65 years without proper planning because our defense officers do not have a realistic war strategy. They are all good fighter but lack in war strategy and carried away by Arms dealers. Maximum money spent on Navy. Till 1995 India Navy was not aware Nicobar Island was a strategic point. in 1995 following a closed-door meeting in Washington between then Indian Prime Minister, P. V. Narasimha Rao, and then US president, Bill Clinton. At the time, Pentagon officials made a formal request to the United Front coalition government in New Delhi to open a base in the islands.[9]. All the Aircraft carriers are white elephants. India should reduce the defense expenditure to the Maximum extent possible. There is a great scope to reduce the expenditure. The present Govt is moving in the right direction. Govt has taken following steps to reduce the expenditure. By creating a good friendship with the USA we have Isolated our two enemies. ( Pakistan and China). The decision to Building a Chabahar port in Iran is a very good step. Once the port is ready the USA did not depend on Pakistan for sending materials to Afganistan. We have started selling defense equipment to small countries. I am sure that the present defense minister will be able to transform the defense PSUs to profit making companies. Similarly with proper inventory control in the three services expenditure can be reduced to a great extent. We should try to develop a technology to use the old equipment by melting and use again as raw material instead of using the new raw material to preserve the natural resources.
Keep in mind that there were quite a few loyalist refugees from the American cities who fled to Canada and Britain after the end of the war. Regardless, the Founding Fathers were more or less liberal, often wealthy, coastal, urban intellectuals, wholly constrasting with the more fundamentalist, anti-intellectual, religious rural farmers and craftsman. Some of the letters written by John Adams, the 2nd president, under the satire pseudonym of Humphry Ploughjogger, perfectly illustrate this difference. Furthermore important to understand is the early historical clash over politics in the early years of the American Republic, with John Adams and the Federalists on one side, and Thomas Jefferson and the Democrats on the other side.
http://www.jobschahiye.in One of the biggest causes of this political war were the Alien and Sedition Acts, which were some pretty vile legislation, some of which are still law in America. There was much legitimacy and reason for the politics of Thomas Jefferson, but the Democrat party was based off the mass populace of America, mostly rural farmers and craftsmen, and eventually a man by the name of Andrew Jackson was able to hijack the Democrat party and lead it into a racist, xenophobic, populist mob. Andrew Jackson was the early 19th century equivalent of Donald Trump.